This is a poem I wrote probably around 1997. It’s a series of short poems entitled “Journals Of A Man Divided” – and each poem is based on one of the words in the title.

Some people look back on their college poetry and get depressed or embarrassed. I’m not ashamed of mine, to be honest. I was a young and raw poet then – today I’m an older and rustier poet.

Journals

Amid stacks and piles,
three miles sratospherically,
a word and a pen
scratch along paper
and create a
mystic dream
with tigers and cherubim
trees and skyscrapers
fog and stars…
wirebound worlds,
visions of unseen…
love unsaid…
and
journals of every
moment that has
passed before
a poet’s painted eye.

Of

mice live simple,
in theivery
and flight…
Atiny heart pumping
a hundred quiet beats
for every one of your own
quickly
sprints his way across
across
scratched linoleum,
under a heavily treaded rug,
to a hole
neatly gnawed through
a most invisible corner.
Mice… a lot like man.

A

keep it precise…
You keep getting too wordy,
trying to articulate what can be said without all the words you use
to describe every little detail not noticed by the naked eye.
You speak in circles and never stop going around the bush-beaten path you’ve
trodden down.
Get to the point.
Get to a point.

Deleted from the sweet freckled face, a smile hides in
my pocket.
Hides next to my pencil, and bubble gum, and it clings to my keys.
Sometimes i smile…
sometimes i don’t
so i won’t say i am not divided..